The present invention relates to the processing technology of images obtained by an image-taking apparatus, such as a digital camera, a digital video camera and a camera phone.
In taking a picture of a subject person in a dark place, an image-taking apparatus, such as a digital camera, a digital video camera and a camera phone, lights a flashbulb as the illumination light. The pupils of the his eyes are dilated in the dark place, and the flash reflected on the retina's capillary often causes so-called redeye in which the person's eyes appear in red. One proposed image-taking apparatus illuminates the subject just before photography and contracts the pupils, so as to prevent the light reflected on the retina's capillary from reaching the image-taking apparatus and mitigate the redeye.
One problem of this image-taking apparatus is that the desired effect is not available unless the subject gazes the redeye easing light.
Accordingly, Japanese Patent Application, Publication No. 2004-145287 discloses the technology that processes red-eyed images and corrects the redeye. This technology detects human eyes in a shot image using the computer software (or program), determines whether or not the pupils are red-eyed, and corrects the redeye using a predetermined color conversion process.
While the above redeye correction using the software can eliminates the redeye from the images, this technology has a problem in that a true color of the subject's eyes is not reproduced. The color of human eyes varies among individuals, such as a person of blue eyes and a person of brown eyes. The predetermined color conversion process to everyone to correct the redeye causes an incorrect reproduction of the color of eyes.
While it is generally possible to change the color of eyes in the shot image using the image-processing software, the software user selects the changing color and no automatic redeye correction is available.